MIDSOMMAR *

What is it with horror films these days or should I say, what is with Ari Aster horror films that they must clock in at around two and a half hours. I still remember the time when you could get a perfectly decent fright-fest at about eighty minutes or less but then perhaps Aster has loftier things in mind than just scaring the pants off us. His first feature, "Hereditary", had a host of real frighteners coupled with a much deeper tale of grief and how we cope with it and it worked very nicely in both camps thanks largely to a terrific performance from Toni Collette as a grief-stricken mother whose demons are very personal indeed.

His new film. "Midsommar" runs for two hours and twenty-seven minutes and in its tale of cults and potential sacrifices it looks like it might go down the same road as its predecessor in both frightening us and making us think, particularly after a beautifully built-up opening involving murder and suicide. However, once Aster whisks us, and his four protagonists, off to Sweden at the invitation of a Swedish friend, we find ourselves in the middle of "The Wicker Man" and some very dodgy 'midsommar' festivities. Actually the slow build-up here also works very nicely. Aster takes his time, (well, he does have almost two and a half hours to play around with), and it's clear to anyone who has seen "The Wicker Man" or any other horror film, come to think of it, that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is and that all this chanting and mumbo-jumbo can only end badly, which, of course, it does a long time after the movies started.

If I sound flippant it's because I really had high hopes for "Midsommar" after the vastly superior "Hereditary". Nothing happens in this picture you can't predict a mile off, (even the killer closing shot is fairly obvious when you think of it). Of course, things might have been different had Aster a leading man who could have convinced us he was disorientated, frightened or even interested in what was going on. Instead, we get Jack Reynor, whose performance is surely a shoo-in for next year's Razzie. Reynor started his career with a reasonably interesting performance in "What Richard Did" as an Irish schoolboy who accidentally kills a classmate but it's been all down hill from there, culminating in this misplaced, wooden performance.

As his girlfriend, Florence Pugh, (she of "Lady Macbeth" fame), does what she can with a one-dimensional role. Indeed, this is not an actor's picture with no-one, including the usually reliable Will Poulter, making much of an impression. It has its moments to be sure, with Aster even managing to inject some grisly humour into the proceedings and perhaps there is a good eighty minute horror movie struggling to get out but by adding an extra hour he kills it. Perhaps the moral of the film is just avoid Sweden in the summer because if the cults don't get you, the tics will.